ABSTRACT
The instability of existing money as a standard of value was, as has been stressed, one of the distinguishing characteristics of early nineteenth century socialist political economy. Money was vital to the operation of markets but had, as many socialist writers saw it, failed to increase pari passu with output. The market as a pricing and valuing mechanism was, therefore, fundamentally flawed. For early nineteenth century socialists such arguments were decisive against the market. Some socialist and anti-capitalist writers like Thompson, Fourierist Charles Bray and Thomas Hodgskin emphasised the consciously exploitative intent of capitalist economic behaviour while others such as Owen tended to explain it as an inevitable consequence of the logic of competitive capitalism for which capitalists and others in positions of economic power could not be held responsible. Finally there were the psychological costs of participating in a competitive market economy.
